ARC Adopts Regional Safety Strategy to Reduce Deaths and Severe Injuries on Metro Atlanta Roads

Atlanta — Mar 08, 2023

The Atlanta Regional Commission today adopted a Regional Safety Strategy designed to provide safe, accessible, and convenient travel for drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

The Regional Safety Strategy features a comprehensive action plan to pro-actively address the top contributing factors to deaths and serious injuries: collisions at intersections; vehicles crossing the center or outer line or otherwise leaving the road; and collisions involving people walking or bicycling.

The plan addresses an urgent need in metro Atlanta. About 600 people are killed and more than 3,000 seriously injured in traffic crashes each year in the Atlanta region, figures that have increased over the past eight years, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation.

The Regional Safety Strategy has a long-term safety goal of zero deaths and serious injuries on all public roads.

“We all want and deserve safer roads. But this won’t happen overnight. It will require making strategic, data-informed decisions and investments to reduce the risks for all of us, whether you are driving, walking, or bicycling,” said John Orr, ARC’s Managing Director of Transportation Planning.

The report provides several strategies for improving safety. These include:

Using roadway designs that account for human errors and reduce collision speeds.
Focusing on locations with the highest risks for severe crashes using proven engineering solutions to address the risk factors.
Addressing behavioral issues such as speeding, distracted driving, impaired driving, and younger/older drivers through education and enforcement.

“Our plan presents a change in how safety is addressed in the region. Instead of focusing on where crashes have happened in the past, this new approach aims to anticipate where crashes are most likely to happen in the future and make the investments needed to prevent them,” said Byron Rushing, Walking and Bicycling Program Manager at ARC.

The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) is the official planning agency for the 11-county Atlanta Region, including Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties as well as the City of Atlanta and 74 other cities. The Atlanta Regional Commission serves as a catalyst for regional progress by focusing leadership, attention and planning resources on key regional issues.

Contact Name: Paul Donsky
Contact Phone: 404-202-4662
Contact Email: pdonsky@atlantaregional.org